By PTI
SHILLONG: Members of the ruling National People’s Party had a narrow escape when a live bomb was detected at the entrance of the party office here on Monday when Vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu was on a visit to the city.
The two kg improvised explosive device was successfully diffused by Meghalaya police, officials said.
The outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) has claimed responsibility for planting the bomb as a mark of protest against the killing of their leader Cheristerfield Thangkhiew in an encounter in August.
Naidu was in the city to inaugurate a road project and to attend a conference of the North Eastern Council.
The presence of an unclaimed bag was reported by a passerby in the afternoon at the entrance of the NPP party office at Lachumiere here and a bomb squad was rushed to the spot which diffused the explosive kept in it, a senior district police official told PTI.
He said the live bomb was diffused and HNLC has claimed responsibility for the planting of the bomb in a post on social media by its self-styled general secretary Sainkupar Nongtraw.
The outfit claimed that the killing of Thangkhiew was a result of “political conspiracy” by ministers in the state and warned NPP leaders in the Khasi Jaintia Hills region of retaliation.
It also sought the immediate resignation of the ministers from the party.
The militant outfit had recently planted several IEDs and one of them went off behind a busy market in the heart of Shillong in August in which two persons were injured and a building was damaged.
